


Narcissus

by glim



Category: Merlin (BBC)
Genre: Gen, Magic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-08-15
Updated: 2010-08-15
Packaged: 2017-10-11 02:44:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 353
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/107497
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/glim/pseuds/glim
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>What Merlin knows is that he was born this way, with magic humming over his skin, flowing as easily as breath and blood through his body, usually warm and golden (as if magic could have such transient qualities like temperature, or color), and sometimes something sharper, more delicate.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	Narcissus

"Use your magic," Arthur says, or Gaius suggests, or, sometimes Morgana intimates.

But they don't know (and how could they know, what sort of realization could they ever have about this part of him?) that there is no _using_.

There is feeling, with all his senses inseparable, and there is the inexorable, inimitable being that makes the magic not his, but _him_. No use, no possession, but an unfolded and unfolding process of being and becoming.

What Merlin knows is that he was born this way, with magic humming over his skin, flowing as easily as breath and blood through his body, usually warm and golden (as if magic could have such transient qualities like temperature, or color), and sometimes something sharper, more delicate.

In the sun, the stars and the light that filters through the springtime leaves, new and green, in the raw morning air and in the dew that settles during eventide, in books, papers, and dried herbs, in the scrape of sword against shield, Merlin sees magic and sees himself, the reflection doubling interminably.

It is in those moments, when Merlin's senses prick along the edges with ice-fine, light-sharp slivers of magic, that he draws the magic out of and around himself. He is suddenly, desperately complete in himself, the magic he cannot separate from his own self murmuring over his skin, sifting through his hair with a touch impossibly light, and he shivers at the sensation.

Sometimes he spends the whole day courting magic, feeling it slip in and out of him, shivering and wanting and feeling himself feel the magic that feels him. And then, when he is alone, and there is acrid candle smoke and starlight filling his room, he feels the magic _fill_ him. Fill him in all the incredible ways a lover could, and fill him in ways that no lover, no man or women, ever could.

The shiver is at his lips, his chest, his cock and the tips of his fingers and toes, and Merlin is lover and beloved, touching-not-touching himself, arching, gripping, tangling with the power that spangles around, reverberates within him.


End file.
